"It was big": Lincoln Riley recalls managing NIL & USC culture after taking over head coaching job

The new era of college football - enveloped in NIL and the transfer portal - has diminished the sanctity of program culture nationwide. Lincoln Riley - who took over the head coaching job at USC back in 2022 - feels so. It was a period when college athletics was undergoing a massive change.

The transfer portal system was already in place; however, the NIL culture was booming, and collectives and money-driven roster movements began to influence the game's dynamics. Riley - who was new to a big program like USC - played it smart by handling both the culture and NIL in equal measure.

The USC coach spoke to Josh Pate on Monday, mentioning how things changed when he joined the program. A lot was going on simultaneously - from roster building to coaching staff management and handling NIL - while players were constantly transferring via the portal.

“It was big. It was even maybe more than what I would have realized when you combine all that together. And I think you know because your initial mindset is, are we got to go build a staff. We got to go build a roster. We knew there were some facility things here that we wanted to really adapt to and that we felt like needed to happen,” Riley said to Josh Pate on Monday. [Timestamp - 2:50]

“So like, those were the things on the surface that you knew that I think, were kind of the low hanging fruit. They were going to take a lot of work, but that's pretty good. That's pretty obvious. I think the next piece of it was, you knew the potential here in LA, given the NIL world, the support for your players, the degree, the life after football, like all of those things.

"You know, the pieces are here, but now all of a sudden that becomes such a big part of college football so fast that you got to catch up. Because, I think, really, for USC and for LA and all of that in general, it's been more of an education of, this is what's happening in the college football world,” he added.

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Lincoln Riley made his first move with Caleb Williams

Riley's departure from Oklahoma after the 2021 season came as a shock to the fans. What's even more boggling is that he took Caleb Williams to LA and settled the dust at USC altogether. It was only a matter of time before he set up a roster around Williams, the program would go on with full force, wrapping up his first season with an 11-3 record.

Similarly, the campaign turned out to be a huge one for Williams himself, who won the coveted Heisman in 2022. Following the season, he put up a decent record and cemented his draft stock by eventually going No. 1 overall to the Chicago Bears in the 2024 NFL draft.